


Desolation

by parsleylion



Category: Linkin Park
Genre: Angst, M/M, More angst, Self Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 17:53:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12512944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parsleylion/pseuds/parsleylion
Summary: this is a story about running, running away from everything you possibly can...





	Desolation

Mike has a new tattoo on his hipbone. It says ' _failure_ '.

  
  


Chester looks at it and says, "and they just  _did_  it without any questions?"

  
  


Mike nods his head.

  
  


"Dude, that's fucking," Chester shakes his head in disbelief. "Why would you want this?"

  
  


"Because it's true."

  
  


+

  
  


Mike goes for scarification the next time, comes back home with ' _all hope is gone_ ' etched between his shoulder blades. Chester looks at Mike in horror then to his back. It's swollen. It makes Chester shudder.

  
  


"Why?"

  
  


Mike shrugs and pulls his shirt back on, "why not?"

  
  


"Because it looks like it hurt a whole lot?"

  
  


Mike smiles, "yeah, it hurt. But who cares?"

  
  


Chester, he sighs and puts down the bowl of cereal he was eating, "I care?" He's not sure why it comes out as a question but it does and Mike just carries on smiling, never faltering.

  
  


"I know."

  
  


+

  
  


The final straw for Chester is when he comes home from the studio one day to find Mike passed out on the bathroom floor. It couldn't, Chester thinks to himself as he scrambles over Mike's body, it couldn't come any more cliché than this. Except for the part where Mike's carved angry letters into his arm.

  
  


It takes Chester the time it takes to call the ambulance and have the lady with the southern drawl tell him to apply pressure to the wound for him to figure out what it says.

  
  


It says 'DEAD'.

  
  


And it's not until Chester's in the ambulance, shaking and trying not to cry that the medic passes him a scrap of paper. It was in Mike's hand, the dude tells Chester as the ambulance speeds down the freeway.

  
  


It says 'I SHOULD BE'...

  
  


+

  
  


Brad says it's a cry for attention. Joe and Phoenix collectively agree that Mike should be locked away but are concerned about the impact this could have on the band. Rob shrugs and suggests Mike take some pills. That way he can still make music.

  
  


Chester sits in the corner of the waiting room wondering when his friends suddenly became such assholes. Why can't any of them  _try_  to understand this mess? Who cares about the band anymore? Who cares about the tours and the albums and the music and the press and the money when  _this_  is happening around them?

  
  


Who cares when Mike is falling apart so spectacularly?

  
  


Chester cares.

  
  


He grips the side of the chairs just to see if this is real. If he can feel the plastic digging into his fingertips, feel the sting as he presses harder, well this is real.

  
  


+

  
  


Mike walks around the apartment in black jeans and a black hoody. The sleeves are so long that they cover the tips of his fingers. He wears the hood up and trudges from room to room, lying down on the floor or the couch or the bed, or sometimes, if he makes it that far, in the bath tub.

  
  


This has been going on for two weeks and as Chester eats his spaghetti with a plastic knife and fork and Mike lies on the floor beneath the kitchen table, Chester wonders if now is the right time to try and break this silence.

  
  


So he says, "Mike?"

  
  


"Mmmm?"

  
  


"What you doing down there?"

  
  


"It's cold."

  
  


"Are you hot?"

  
  


"No. I'm cold."

  
  


"Okay."

  
  


Silence.

  
  


"Mike?"

  
  


"Mmmm?"

  
  


"Do you want some pasta?"

  
  


"Sure."

  
  


"You have to sit at the table though."

  
  


"Okay. Can I use adult cutlery though?"

  
  


"No," Chester tries to ignore the malice in Mike's tone.

  
  


"Because?"

  
  


"I threw it away."

  
  


"Because?"

  
  


"You know why, Mike."

  
  


Mike laughs and rolls onto his stomach. Chester thinks he mutters something about this being a fucking joke. He wonders how Mike would react if he knew that Chester threw away everything sharp in the house, even took down the mirrors and threw out the crystal champagne glasses.

  
  


Just in case.

  
  


+

  
  


The next day Chester finds broken plastic cutlery all over the apartment. It starts in the bed and he follows it that morning, its winding trail leading to the garden, where as Chester slips through the patio door, he finds Mike sitting on the floor. There's a pile of shattered white forks surrounding him and Chester crouches down, his hand reaching out for Mike's.

  
  


"Why are you doing this?" Chester asks, his hand turning red as it slips around Mike's. The blood, it feels warm against his cold skin.

  
  


"Doing what?"

  
  


Chester glances down to the mess of Mike's hands. To the blood and the broken plastic. Then to Mike's face. To the tearstained cheeks and the empty eyes.

  
  


"Destroying yourself?"

  
  


Mike twists his hands free and presses them to his face.

  
  


"Because I don't want to destroy you."

  
  


+

  
  


Chester thought he knew  _everything_  about Mike. But Chester, he was wrong. Chester knows how Mike likes his eggs. And he knows how Mike hates spiders and the sun when it shines through the car windscreen. He knows that Mike came out to his mom when he was seventeen and he knows that Mike's first car was a fifth-hand Honda which had no passenger window. He also knows Mike's favourite colour is green and that he hates apples and loves strawberries.

  
  


But he didn't know that Mike was abused as a child and that Mike is so fucking scared of that myth called 'cycle of abuse' and that's why he hurts himself when he's angry because he doesn't ever want to risk hurting Chester.

  
  


"It's not a myth though, is it?" Mike asks Chester.

  
  


"It's not always true though, is it?"

  
  


And Mike shrugs, pushing his slice of pizza around his plate.

  
  


"When you hurt yourself," Chester starts, "is that when you want to hurt me?"

  
  


Mike stops poking the slice of pizza with the plastic fork and glances up, "no!"

  
  


Chester frowns, "then I don't get it."

  
  


Mike sighs and pushes his plate away as he gets up from the table, "no one does."

  
  


+

  
  


Chester asks Mike if he's ever hurt anyone.

  
  


"No."

  
  


So Chester asks Mike what he's so afraid of.

  
  


"In case I do."

  
  


Chester sighs and asks what the tattoo has got to do with all of this.

  
  


"Oh, that's another thing. I  _do_  hate myself."

  
  


Chester wants to know why.

  
  


"Because I do."

  
  


Chester tells Mike he thinks he's beautiful, even with the scars, and he thinks that he should talk to someone who can help him figure some things out.

  
  


Mike gets up and walks away.

  
  


A few hours later, Chester goes into the kitchen to get a drink. Pinned to the refrigerator door is a note.

  
  


It says 'I don't want to talk to someone. I want to talk to you.'

  
  


+

  
  


Chester drives around for seven hours straight before he finds Mike. The sun is just starting to rise and there he is on the opposite side of the street walking along in a daze. Chester slows down and turns the car round, crawling to a stop at the edge of the kerb. He winds down the window and waits for Mike to catch up.

  
  


Mike, he opens the door and gets in. Shuts the door and puts on his seatbelt. He turns to Chester and smiles softly.

  
  


Chester drives. But he doesn't drive home.

  
  


+

  
  


"Do you want to die, Mike?" Chester asks, shutting of the engine.

  
  


Mike doesn't look at him.

  
  


Chester sighs, "Mike?" he puts a hand on his shoulder, "Mike answer me."

  
  


"No."

  
  


"So you need to stop hurting yourself."

  
  


"I do?"

  
  


"Yes."

  
  


Mike sighs and opens the car door, wordlessly gets out and slams it shut. Chester follows him outside and leans against the side of the car. Where he's brought Mike is the cemetery where his best friend, Drake, is buried.

  
  


"Follow me," he tells Mike, taking a path to his right. When they're in the thick of trees and the sun is hidden by branches and green leaves, Chester crouches down and nods toward the tombstone he's stopped in front of.

  
  


"This is Drake. We met in kindergarten and we lived in each other's pockets until we were eighteen."

  
  


Mike sighs and digs his hands into his pockets.

  
  


"Drake went to a different High school than me and Drake got bullied for being gay."

  
  


Mike scuffs some dirt up with the toe of his sneaker.

  
  


"He started self harming. Got to a point where he did it every morning and every night."

  
  


"Why didn't you do something about it?"

  
  


Chester glares coldly at Mike, "you think I didn't try, Mike?"

  
  


"Well, he's six feet under so I figured that..."

  
  


"That what? That I'm a shit person and I just turned a blind eye? And what, that's what you think I'm doing to you because I suggested you talk to someone professional? Mike I can't do this, okay? I can't watch you kill yourself."

  
  


"Like Drake?"

  
  


"Yes, like Drake. I tried so hard, Mike. I tried so hard to get through to him and he just kept on pushing me away."

  
  


"What happened?"

  
  


"Took a bullet to the side of his head, slit his wrists beforehand just for good measure."

  
  


"I'm not a coward."

  
  


"Sorry?"

  
  


"Cowards, they take the easy way out, they  _kill_  themselves."

  
  


Chester gets up, wiping the dirt from his legs, "then what the  _fuck_  are you trying to do to yourself, Mike?"

  
  
  


+

  
  


It's Saturday night. For years Saturday night meant one of two things. Either beer and takeout with the band at Mike and Chester's apartment or get dressed up and go get drunk together in some bar.

  
  


For months on end now, Saturday night has become Mike and Chester curled up in front of the TV. Sometimes it's even switched on.

  
  


Chester fumbles with the remote, trying to turn the volume down as Mike sits down beside him. He's stopped wearing the hoody, finally got just a T-shirt on. The cuts have scabbed over and Mike keeps picking at them, no matter how many times Chester bats his hands away.

  
  


"Will you quit that," Chester sighs, dropping the remote control and grabbing Mike's hand.

  
  


"Sorry."

  
  


"Yeah, you fucking should be."

  
  


"Yeah? And what about you? You're the one who left me in a fucking graveyard yesterday to walk home alone."

  
  


"You spoke to me like shit."

  
  


"I just called your friend a coward."

  
  


"And anyway," Chester ignores Mike's response, "you said you wanted to talk to  _me_."

  
  


"Well maybe if you shut up for five minutes I could."

  
  


"I'm going to the kitchen," Chester gets up, "so that's where I'll be if you want to talk."

  
  


+

  
  


Chester waited in the kitchen the entire night. Then around four am he went to bed, found Mike standing in the middle of the bathroom.

  
  


"It's late."

  
  


Mike turned around. He was dripping wet. Chester sighed and grabbed a towel, walked over to him and draped it over his shoulders. He got a smaller towel out too, started rubbing at Mike's hair then at his cold skin and then he took him by the hand and led him into the bedroom.

  
  


"I want you to see someone Mike. But that doesn't mean I don't want you to talk to me, too. Maybe we can go to counselling together."

  
  


"What about what I want?"

  
  


"What do you want?"

  
  


"To stop feeling like I need to do this?"

  
  


"Is that a question or is that what you want?"

  
  


Mike sighs and unties the towel from around his waist. He steps toward Chester, water still dripping from his eyelashes.

  
  


"It's what I want."

  
  


+

  
  


The Doctor is a complete asshole. He gives Mike three types of pills and then says they should try therapy together after a few weeks of Mike taking the medication. Chester drives them away feeling deflated. Beside him, in the passenger seat, Mike fiddles with the child safety lock on the car door.

  
  


+

  
  


"Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to put your hand on a hot grill?"

  
  


Chester, he blows smoke out into the air and shakes his head, "no."

  
  


"What about how it would feel to put your arm in a door and slam it shut repeatedly, say, fifty times?"

  
  


Chester takes a drag from his cigarette, "no."

  
  


"Have you ever felt like putting your fist through a wall?"

  
  


"No."

  
  


"Wanted to smash a mirror then slash your thighs with the shards of glass?"

  
  


"No."

  
  


"What about when you use a lighter. Don't you ever feel like holding the flame against your wrists?"

  
  


"Still, no."

  
  


"Okay," Mike pauses, "have you ever picked up a hammer and hit yourself against the stomach with it until you can't breathe anymore? Purposely held your mom's curling tongues against your skin? Thrown yourself down a set of stairs?"

  
  


"No, no and no. Mike, what is this?"

  
  


"I've done them all."

  
  


"..."

  
  


"I know. It sounds. It sounds bad, right?"

  
  


These new pills. Three days after Mike's started taking them and he won't shut up. He constantly talks. Chester doesn't mind though. Not even when the conversation gets pretty disturbing. Chester figures that this has been trapped inside Mike for way too long now, he needs to get it out.

  
  


It doesn't make for easy listening, but then, this is what Chester wanted; for Mike to open up.

  
  


"It sounds a little, a little scary, yes," Chester nods.

  
  


"Every time he touched me," Mike whispers, "I'd do something worse to myself to erase the pain. If he raped me, I'd throw myself down the stairs. It killed two birds with one stone. It made me forget that he'd hurt me because I was in far much more pain from hitting the hallway floor head first. And also, it would explain all the cuts and bruises to my mom."

  
  


"But he's stopped. It's over. Why do you need to keep doing it?"

  
  


Mike tilts his head, "how easy would it be for you to give up smoking."

  
  


"It would probably kill me to try," Chester smiles.

  
  


"Exactly."

  
  


And Chester, he glances at the bottle of pills on the table out on the patio and he thinks that maybe he's finally starting to understand.

  
  
  


+

  
  


"How does all of this make you a failure?"

  
  


"I let it happen. I could have fought it."

  
  


"Not necessarily."

  
  


"I could have told someone what was happening."

  
  


"You did."

  
  


"Yeah, after several years. And so he killed himself before he could get arrested. Pretty much, I'm to blame for my dad's death. I'm pretty certain that's a good definition of failure."

  
  


"I don't think that's true. If anything, he was a failure for doing what he did to you."

  
  


Mike just shrugs.

  
  


"Mike, what about all that stuff you said, about hurting yourself because you don't want to hurt me?"

  
  


Mike sighs, "sometimes I feel like I can't forget what happened. And I can't get over it or move on, no matter how long it's been. And I've got all this shit in my head that I want to say. Like how, I think you're better off without me and how I'm damaged goods and how you deserve better and should just leave me to rot..."

  
  


"Mike please don't..."

  
  


"... just let me finish, please."

  
  


"Okay."

  
  


"And I don't want to say these things, Chester. I don't want to tell you this shit because then you'll worry and you'll panic because you'll want to make me feel okay again. So if I hurt myself instead, then I'm not hurting you."

  
  


"So you mean, rather than telling me what you think, you keep it inside until you can't cope anymore? And then you flip out and do something drastic like carve words into your arms?"

  
  


Mike, he just about nods.

  
  


"And what, you don't think that doesn't hurt me?"

  
  


"Pretty much, whatever I do is going to hurt you," Mike says and gets up from the table, walks back inside.

  
  


+

  
  


Mike takes up running. One Sunday when Chester's still in bed, Mike is pulling a sweater over his head. Chester cracks an eye open and looks at the clock on the bedside table.

  
  


"Mike, it's seven am."

  
  


"I know but I read some of that stuff you printed out."

  
  


Chester wonders how Mike found the information he printed off the internet last week about depression. Chester swears he hid it well.

  
  


"Anyway, this one dude says that simple exercise can help."

  
  


Chester thinks that it's going to take more than  _simple_  exercise, but he smiles and nods.

  
  


"So I'm going to take up jogging."

  
  


Three weeks later and Mike goes running twice a day, sometimes three times if he's feeling especially restless. Chester watches him put his ear buds in and turn on some Metallica or some heavy trance music that he didn't quite catch the name of.

  
  


Mike says if Chester ever wants to join him, then he's welcome. Chester's been smoking heavily since he was fifteen. It takes enough out of him just to perform a full set on stage. Chester thinks if he even jogged to the front door and down the steps he'd been wheezing and gasping for breath.

  
  


So Chester stays behind and rolls up his cigarettes and he watches Mike come home and take a shower and of course, he sneaks in the bathroom and opens the shower curtain, slips inside and wraps his arms around Mike's waist.

  
  


The scars, Chester can't help but notice, are healing nicely.

  
  


+

  
  


Chester quits smoking. Cold turkey. He goes to the store and buys a bunch of patches and nicotine gum. The gum tastes like shit but Chester chews relentlessly on it, starts drinking Pepsi every time his fingers begin to itch. No way is fiddling with a ring pull as good as feeling a cigarette against his skin, but Chester figures he should make an effort. That way maybe he can start going running with Mike.

  
  


They never get to therapy and Chester brings it up at dinner one evening.

  
  


"Sure," Mike shrugs, "but it can't be an evening or morning session because I need to go running then."

  
  


Chester smiles because he thinks Mike's joking. But then Mike's saying, "what? Do I have salad dressing on my chin?"

  
  


"No..."

  
  


"Okay then. So, maybe mid morning or mid afternoon. Probably best to keep lunch times free, too."

  
  


+

  
  


Chester rings around. Apparently, according to his faithful friend Coby, there's a hot piece of ass therapist he used to see. Chester really does  _not_  want to know how tight she is or how she makes the tiny little groan when you hit her right, but down the phone, Coby tells her all of this before giving Chester her number.

  
  


"She's amazing," Coby says, "she'll fix you right up."

  
  


+

  
  


The day before their first appointment, Mike doesn't come home from his morning run until nine pm. Chester stands in the doorway, worried as Mike comes running up the driveway like nothing's happened. He jogs up the steps, takes out his ear buds and kisses Chester on the cheek before stepping inside.

  
  


Chester's not smoked for eleven days straight.

  
  


"Where the  _fuck_  have you been?"

  
  


Mike kicks off his running shoes, "I went for a longer run than normal. I really need to shower."

  
  


He turns and heads down the hallway toward the bathroom. Chester picks Mike's shoes up and hurls them after him. Narrowly, they miss Mike's retreating back and hit the bathroom door.

  
  


Chester storms away, ends up outside on the patio. He hid this one final box of cigarettes underneath a plant pot for emergencies.

  
  


"I think we have a fucking emergency," he hisses, grabbing the carton from its hiding place.

  
  


He lights up and doesn't stop at one. He smokes the entire pack and is just finishing the last one when Mike comes out, towel around his hips, all dripping wet from his shower.

  
  


"I thought you quit," Mike sounds upset.

  
  


"Yeah, well," Chester blows smoke out into the air, "like you said. It's not that easy."

  
  


+

  
  


Mike doesn't feel well. So he says. Even though he still goes out running that morning. Chester sighs and picks up the phone.

  
  


"I'll cancel then?"

  
  


From the bed, Mike nods.

  
  


Chester phones the therapist, asks if they can reschedule. She says it's fine and Chester swears he can hear Coby in the background. When he's finished on the phone he turns around to tell Mike that she can see them next week.

  
  


He's gone.

  
  


And when Chester gets to the front door, he can just about see Mike's figure running down the end of the street.

  
  


+

  
  


Chester hardly sees Mike these days. He's cold and it's July and he's sat outside with his boxes of cigarettes piled up on the table, thinking about how it's been months and months since he heard from any of the band.

  
  


Every time Chester arranged a date to see the therapist Mike would either crawl into bed with a temperature or just not bother coming home. So Chester, he's given up. Now all he sees of Mike is a too-thin guy stalking around the house for maybe an hour of the day. He's wearing that black hoody and black jeans when he's not running.

  
  


One or two times, Chester's followed him to see where he goes. It's nowhere exciting, just round and round the suburbs forty or fifty times. And then he'll sit on a bench in the park and well, just sit.

  
  


Now the only time Chester gets to spend with Mike is at night and he hates to admit it but that's the time of day he craves so badly. That's the moment he looks forward to from the minute he wakes up cold and alone, patting the empty space beside him always, just in case, well, just in case Mike decided to stay home for once.

  
  


+

  
  


Saturday nights are no longer TV with optional picture and Chester laid across Mike's legs on the couch. Saturday nights are Chester doing the laundry because he slept all day and has nothing better to do because Mike's just gone out, his feet padding down the sidewalk and echoing off of the walls.

  
  


Chester freezes the moment he sees the blood on one of Mike's shirts. And he stays in the exact spot; leaning against the kitchen counter - until Mike comes home, kicks off his shoes and goes into the bathroom.

  
  


Because Chester hasn't followed him in for ages, he's surprised to find the door locked. Then again, this all makes sense now. And because this is just about as much as he can take, when Mike doesn't answer him knocking, Chester kicks the door in and scrambles through the splintered shards.

  
  


Mike's just peeling off his shirt.

  
  


Mike's just staring open mouthed as Chester stands shaking in what used to be the doorway.

  
  


Mike's just crossing his arms over his torso.

  
  


Cuts. So many of them. All over the thighs. Hips. Stomach.

  
  


Mike bites his lip.

  
  


Chester asks why.

  
  


"Yeah well," Mike shrugs, "like you said. Quitting. It's not that easy."

  
  


Chester just shakes his head and walks away, kicking shards of wood out of his way. He heads to the bedroom, straight to the dresser. When he opens the drawer, he finds Mike's pills. And he finds the bottles all full. And he finds the repeat prescriptions torn into shreds. And he finds himself thinking that if he knew to look and see if Mike was taking his meds right now, he should have known weeks ago.

  
  


When Chester's calmed down, having smoked half a pack of cigarettes, he closes the bedroom window he'd left open to flick the ash out of and heads to the bathroom. Mike's not there. Just this pile of dirty clothes. So Chester tries the patio. Nothing. Not in the kitchen or the lounge. Or anywhere.

  
  


Chester stops by the front door. Mike's running shoes are gone. It's past midnight and he could be anywhere doing anything by now.

  
  


Grabbing a box of cigarettes from beside the phone, Chester digs into his pocket for his lighter, opens the door and sits on the front step. With the lighter, a small piece of paper falls out. It's covered in dry blood.

  
  


It says, 'I SHOULD BE...'

  
  


Chester lights up a cigarette, pats down his other pocket and slides out another small piece of paper. He opens it up.

  
  


It says 'I don't want to talk to someone. I want to talk to you.'

  
  


Chester places the notes down beside him on the step. He stares at them through his tears. He reads them. Keeps reading them. Over and over again until he's whispering words that aren't even there.

  
  


"It should be," he breathes out, "that I want to talk to you."

  
  


He closes his eyes, flicks ash from his cigarette. He leans against the stair rail listening for Mike's feet pounding on the sidewalk.

  
  


Nothing.

  
  


So he repeats it again, "It should be that I  _want_  to talk to you."

  
  


He opens his eyes, blows smoke rings into the air. It's cold and Chester's got goose pimples all over his arms and legs. He should go inside but he can't, it's like he's frozen to the spot.

  
  


And he's thinking about these words. These words that aren't there but should be. These things that aren't said but need to be.

  
  


He wants to tell Mike to stop running. He wants to tell Mike to stop fucking running away. From him. From this mess. From his past. From himself. From everything. And he wants to tell Mike that he's been doing it too. That he's been sleeping and not dreaming because when he shuts his eyes he doesn't have to think about any of this.

  
  


And he's sorry. He wants to tell Mike this. He wants to talk to him. He's got so much to say.

  
  


So Chester sits there and waits.

  
  


Waits for Mike to run back home.

  
  


Prays that he's going to show.

  
  


"Please Mike," he whispers, folding the tiny scraps of paper between his fingers, "please come home. I really fucking want to talk to you."

  
  
  


**END.**


End file.
